Sisters puts a fresh twist on family

There are few subjects as rich in the potential for both comedy and drama as family.

Ten puts a fresh twist on the well-trodden blended family scenario with its new series Sisters, starring Maria Angelico, Lucy Durack and Antonia Prebble as Julia, Roxy and Edie, who suddenly find out they’re half-sisters as the result of an IVF scandal.

For Prebble, it wasn’t only the show’s quirky premise that drew her to the role of lawyer Edie but the chance to star in a female-driven series.

“It’s so important to have women on screen and women’s stories on screen, and also what I’m really proud about with this show is the representation of those women on screen,” she says from the series’ Melbourne set. “Everybody in every department has been really committed to representing women truthfully, as we really are, not in this really narrow, cliched stereotyped version that sometimes is presented.

“We were really focused on presenting really well-rounded, flawed, multidimensional but real women, and you get to see them in situations and environments that you probably wouldn’t normally, that are maybe a little bit awkward or things don’t get solved beautifully like they might in other TV shows — so that’s one thing that I’m really proud of and I hope that people respond to.”

The Auckland-based actress, who is best known for her role in New Zealand comedy-drama series Outrageous Fortune and its prequel,Westside, says each of the women’s reactions to the scandal — in which terminally ill reproductive scientist Julius Bechly (Barry Otto) reveals on his deathbed that he secretly provided the donor sperm for hundreds of his patients — comes at a time when they’re already dealing with an array of personal issues.

Camera IconPrebble with co-stars Maria Angelico and Lucy Durack.

“(Edie) is at a really interesting point in her life,” she says. “Even prior to the news of Julius being her father and having all these siblings ... she was actually very much in a searching stage of her life, she’s really questioning a lot about her identity and in fact her sexuality.

“I think a lot of the show is about identity and what makes us who we are. Is it our family, is it our blood, is it our relationships, is it our job. What are the pillars of our identity.

“And for Edie they’re all kind of falling down around her.”

Although it explores some heavy themes, Prebble says Sisters’ creators — the same team behind Offspring and Puberty Blues — have ensured that “with one scene you might be crying and the next scene you might be laughing”.

“The whole way through we’ve just been trying to really be honest and truthful about how life plays out in all its complexities,” she says. “And so in that way the tone of the show reflects reality, so there is lightness and also drama.”

Prebble says working with a cast of Australian acting legends made the experience of filming the seven-episode season even more special.

“Maria Angelico and Lucy Durack who play my two sisters, they are just exceptional women,” she says. “And then spilling out from that, Dan Spielman who plays my husband Tim, he’s wonderful and a feminist in his own right, he really cares about women’s rights.

“Catherine McClements ... I just love watching her work and she’s a lovely woman. And Magda Szubanski, I was a huge fan of hers. I was such a fangirl when we first met like ‘oh my God I can’t believe I’m on a show with you’.

“So it’s a very, very happy set, we all get on well and everyone’s really committed to the show but is also committed to enjoying the process and to encouraging everyone else as well.”